Minecraft Is Changing How Many Players Sign In

Minecraft players who use a Mojang account or a legacy Minecraft account to play – and there's a lot of them – will soon have to sign in to the Java edition of the game a different way to play. Mojang announced this week that it's planning on moving away from this older system of login accounts and will soon require every player to have a Microsoft account in order to play all their games, Minecraft included. That won't be a big deal for players on other platforms, but if you're on PC and play the Java edition, you're going to need to migrate your existing account to a Microsoft one to keep playing.

Mojang described the transition as "moving house" and said the new house Minecraft players will find themselves in will have better benefits than the old one. Chat and invitation blocking, having Minecraft games on the PC all under one account, and two-factor authentication are the big highlights mentioned in the announcement and in the video below to ease players into the transition. More features stemming from this move will release later.

"We have decided to move away from legacy accounts to better protect our players, increase overall account security, and introduce new safety features," Mojang said in an FAQ about the topic. Because we can't do this with legacy accounts, we made the decision to use Microsoft accounts instead of building new ones from scratch. The biggest added benefit to migrating your account is the option to enable two-factor authentication. We will roll out additional player safety features over time

For those wondering if the move is mandatory, it is. Eligible players should receive a prompt in the launcher when trying to play the game that invites them to migrate. All you have to do then is log in with a Microsoft account or create one if you don't have one yet, set up an Xbox profile and confirm the migration, and then you'll be good to go. Everything gets copied over in the move, so you shouldn't lose anything in the process.

No Microsoft account means no more playing Minecraft's Java edition, but players don't have to make the transition right away if they don't want to. Starting in the fall, players who play the Java edition for the first time will have to create Microsoft accounts. Those who need to migrate will be forced to move to the new system starting in early 2021. Players who migrate over will earn a free cape for their troubles.